Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @11:18PM
from the even-muggles-want-one dept.

GillBates0 writes "Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has blamed fans of Harry Potter for the demise of wild owls in the country as children seek to emulate the boy wizard by taking the birds as pets. 'Following Harry Potter, there seems to be a strange fascination even among the urban middle classes for presenting their children with owls,' Ramesh said Wednesday, according to comments reported by the BBC."

The word "endangered" is used in several articles referencing this problem. However, no article provides the wild owls' population numbers. Endangered species should be protected, but it should be shown that the species are indeed

I don't have time right now, but you could find the scientific (Latin) names and query the IUCN Red List (there's a website). Common names might work too.

Sometimes Wikipedia includes the information (under either or both names), e.g. for this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_Owlet [wikipedia.org] (LC = least concern, which means it's been evaluated and isn't endangered).

Yes, clearly the problem is Harry Potter rather than lousy parenting. If a child wants something that's both impractical and could be damaging to the ecosystem, a responsible parent says, "I'm sorry, but you can't have that." Real children are a lot more reasonable than Veruca Salt. And seriously, I'm amazed no one has made the comparison with baby alligators yet.

Yes, clearly the problem is Harry Potter rather than lousy parenting. If a child wants something that's both impractical and could be damaging to the ecosystem, a responsible parent says, "I'm sorry, but you can't have that."

Part of the problem is that all too often, the "bad" children then gang up on the would be "good" child and then proceed to convince them that the "good" parent is actually a horrible, horrible person/parent for not providing them everything to which they are inherently entitled. The "good" child is then left with a simple decision to which the parent frequently has no idea is going on. Either be accepted by your peers and turn on your parent, or be an outcast and maintain a strong relationship with your pa

And exactly how are they catching wild owls? Have you ever tried to catch a wild bird? The closest I've ever gotten to a wild owl was probably 30 feet. Well, with one exception, but it had a broken wing, was blind in one eye, and was being nursed back to health by a local farmer.

I seriously doubt children have any significant impact on wild bird populations. I haven't known too many children who are good enough to build a trap for any sort of animal.

And exactly how are they catching wild owls? Have you ever tried to catch a wild bird?

How far from our noble genocidal hunter-gatherer origins we humans can fall? Catching something like birds is pretty trivial with a bit of experience and some kind of a trap or a net (the original kind, not the computer kind...). As soon as there are enough people with motivation, anything can and will be casually hunted to extinction, unless it's good at literally going underground.

Most of the world shifted from being hunter-gatherers (with some exceptions) to agrarian systems an awful long time ago. For most civilized countries, hunting became a sport, not a means of survival. For the most part, we survive on domesticated animals and farm raised plants, which are purchased in local stores. There are exceptions, but those are few and far between, and even then, you probably wouldn't be posting to Slashdot if you were there.

Most of the world shifted from being hunter-gatherers (with some exceptions) to agrarian systems an awful long time ago. For most civilized countries, hunting became a sport, not a means of survival. For the most part, we survive on domesticated animals and farm raised plants, which are purchased in local stores. There are exceptions, but those are few and far between, and even then, you probably wouldn't be posting to Slashdot if you were there.

Don't try to fool yourself, only a very small percentage of those living in modern society could live without our modern infrastructure. Ask your average city dweller to catch a pigeon.

If that average city dweller could gain a lot (relative to his situation, for example $50 per bird or something in New York) by catching pigeons, you'd see pigeon population plummet, hunted by those very city dwellers. It'd be matter of weeks before those city dwellers would be very proficient pigeon hunters (provided the pigeons would not run out before then).

Not to mention, this was about India. With what... 800 million poor, many of who would gladly hunt owls if they got any money from it. Now let's say

I suppose it won't be long before movie producers and book publishers are required to do research, prepare environmental impact statements,
and seek approval before they can publish a film or distribute a book

Something tells me, a few public service announcements, and temporary moratorium on trafficing of owls, and fine/jail time for capturing an owl without a permit, could end the idiocy fairly quickly.

I would think that upper classes would just import an already magically trained Owl from a breeder "somewhere else", where breeding has been outsourced (Indonesia?:) ), and lower and/or rural middle classes would just catch their own in the wild...

Which leaves only "urban middle class" to try to aquire one on an open market, so, no surprise there!

(and yes, I do like owls, no harm wished towards them, as opposed to the summary editors!:) )

This happened with sharks after Jaws and continues to this very day. The original author of Jaws, Peter Benchley, said that he regretted writing the novel and the creation of the film because it lead to the mass killing of so many species of sharks.

Perhaps they are disappearing due to massive pollution and the owls eating prey that has been munching on and concentrating poison.

I really find it difficult to believe that kids getting owls are indeed at fault. However, thanks to the captive population that will become established, maybe India will be able to reintroduce its owls once they stop polluting their environment as badly as they are now.

Yeah, fantasies regarding supernatural mammalian-type beings seem to be very common among members of the human species. I even heard one about an invisible man in the sky who has a list of things that people shouldn't do, upon pain of punishment, but it doesn't seem that the ones who worship him get punished when they do those things. Indeed, many of them gain lots of riches and control over their fellow members of that species. Who would have thought?

Researchers found that a growing number of owls were being trapped, traded or killed in black magic rituals.

If they are killing owls in black magic rituals, they either have a pretty strange translation of Harry Potter, or very bad reading comprehension. Or maybe somebody did not understand that not every trend that started some times after 1997 is caused by Harry Potter.

For the record, and not that this is going to help the problem, small to mid-size owls are peaceful and surprisingly easy to get along with, far less willing and able to attack handlers than hawks, eagles, or particularly vultures. I've done work with raptor rehab and have dated two falconers and most everyone prefers working with owls.

When my mom was a child one of her uncles had an owl that had self-domesticated. It lived in their house, and they left a window open for it to fly in/out. They couldn't